Brad Pitt and his family narrowly escape a swarming zombie infestation in the premiere trailer for Paramount’s World War Z.
I must admit that World War Z doesn’t look half as bad as all the negative buzz that leaked out of its production may have indicated. Reports of trouble on the set, financial woes and reshoots seemed to plague the project before we got a chance to have a look at one second of actual footage. Spy footage of people running around on a set doesn’t count.
The World War Z trailer starts with Brad Pitt, his wife (Mireille Enos, The Killing), and their two kids stuck in downtown traffic. A police motorcycle zooms by in the opposite direction, then there’s an explosion up ahead, and then the cop returns and gets run over by a big truck. Clearly all hell has broken loose.
Paramount has taken an unusual angle with this trailer’s messaging by never explicitly identifying all the people running around as zombies. Most of the shots involving zombies are from helicopters or cranes. Someone not familiar with the project might not initially realize that Brad Pitt and his NATO friends are battling against a massive zombie virus outbreak.
I am intrigued by how quickly the virus seems to spread in the opening scene. Clever editing could be partially to blame for this, but it seems like these zombies are able to take over a massive area in mere minutes. Do their victims turn almost instantaneously? I have not read the book World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks that the film is based off so that answer will have to wait.
World War Z is directed by Marc Forster and stars Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, and Matthew Fox. It turns zombies into speedy little devils when it opens in theaters everywhere on June 21, 2013.
